6 Reasons Your Company Should Consider Moving to QuickBooks Online

Your cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. You want to go the extra mile to make sure your financial records are accurate and up to date, and you need to have full control of the cash flowing through your operation. This makes proper accounting essential, and adopting a good financial accounting solution is critical to long-term success. Here are six reasons your company should consider moving to QuickBooks Online.

It Improves Workforce Collaboration

When you switch to QuickBooks Online, you gain access to a cloud-based, web-accessible financial system. Your team can share files and all work off the same data set. They’ll all be informed as cash levels and inventory levels change, and they can access data from almost anywhere they have an internet connection. QuickBooks Online lets everyone run off a single dashboard, though they can create custom reports and feeds.

Because QuickBooks Online is so easy to use, it is ideal for appointment-based businesses. Everyone will have more time for appointments, maximizing profits for the business.

Your Company Keeps Its Data Safe and Secure

QuickBooks Online utilizes ultra-secure cloud technology. This provides the ideal balance between access to your data through the cloud and IT security. Your files are safe and secure when stored in the QuickBooks Online cloud. There’s an extra layer of security knowing that you won’t lose your critical files if a company server is damaged or an accountant’s computer was stolen. A clear benefit for many small businesses is the fact that you reduce your IT costs, including IT security, because QuickBooks’ developers take care of that for you. A side benefit is the fact that QuickBooks Online eliminates your need to make periodic backups. You can arrange for multiple backups of your financial files to be made, protecting against accidental data loss. Simply ask, and data can be restored for a particular date range.

Note that if you already use QuickBooks, you can convert to QuickBooks Online, though there is a particular sequence of events you have to follow to make the migration. You’ll want to clean-up the data before doing this, such as by making any record deletions and file mergers before you migrate to the cloud. You can set up QuickBooks Online as a fresh set-up, as well.

Inventory Management Integrates with the Financial Software

In too many businesses, inventory management is done with spreadsheets, though for some, it is done in a separate software application. Or you can use a Quickbooks inventory management tool that communicates with QuickBooks. Then the purchase orders you generate and orders you receive and fill update your inventory automatically.

When QuickBooks Online is tied to an inventory management module, you can manage and track the resources that your business relies upon. You can check how much funding you have available and the raw materials you have in stock from the same dashboard. You can track how much you’re paying employees and where their time is spent.

These features are invaluable for ecommerce and retail businesses, whether you sell affordable furniture or luxury goods. You can track inventory via barcodes and have first in, first out inventory management and FIFO costing. You can view historical inventory counts and estimate how long your inventory will last. Or you can display inventory by location, an invaluable feature if you have multiple retail storefronts or factories.

It Improves Efficiency

QuickBooks Online simplifies many business tasks, taking them out of your hands and freeing you up to do other things. It can be set up to send customer invoices immediately, and you can customize the invoices to include the company’s logo and your preferred font. Field services businesses and professional service providers, in particular, benefit from this. You won’t have to spend very much time doing manual data entry to send out the invoices necessary to get paid.

QuickBooks Online can automatically record payments as invoices are paid. You can automatically send reports to accountants, managers and customers as desired. You can have it send cost estimates to clients and reports to stakeholders.

It Is Versatile

QuickBooks Online is designed for use by both computers and mobile devices. Your accountant can access the same data your inventory staff is seeing, whether they’re in front of a PC or on a tablet in the warehouse. It can connect with a number of apps, so you could process payments from a number of payment apps. Many expense tracking apps connect seamlessly with QuickBooks Online as well. QuickBooks can handle multiple locations and various costing methods.

It Saves You Money

QuickBooks Online doesn’t charge you money to connect to financial institutions. This minor expense can add up if you have to connect to a variety of banks and credit unions. Another point in favor of QuickBooks Online is that it can connect to almost any financial institution and download data. The ability to download transactions certainly saves everyone time, and that can result in reduced labor costs. You can import data from most sales tools, as well. A good inventory management tool will automatically allow you to send sales orders to QuickBooks, too, dramatically reducing the amount of data entry your team has to do and the opportunities they have to make mistakes.

We’ve already discussed how QuickBooks Online eliminates your need to employ top of the line IT security to protect your financial data or have to back it up periodically. QuickBooks has excellent customer support, and this could result in reduced load on your IT staff. The automatic updates of QuickBooks Online by the software provider certainly save your company time and money that would be taken up in updating financial software installed on every user’s computer.

QuickBooks Online comes with many features that let you stay on top of payroll in addition to seamlessly managing inventory. You can view reports on everything from cash flow to inventory, so you can make the right decision immediately. You can check your progress toward financial goals, too, whether it is sales projections or your savings rate. Map your income and expenses to know how much you’re actually taking home or likely to owe in taxes.

There are more reasons to move to QuickBooks Online than those we’ve listed above, but these are the half dozen major ones. These benefits can be reaped by businesses large and small, and the software can serve businesses in nearly every industry.